Original content and news about the autism epidemic from the perspective that autism is treatable. Anaylsis of current media treatment of autism and the environmental causes of autism.

Thanks to Jeannette Bishop for this unofficial text of Posey remarks on U.S. House floor: TO BEGIN WITH, I AM ABSOLUTELY, RESOLUTEY PRO-VACCINE. Advancements in medical immunization have saved countless lives and greatly benefitted public health. That being said, it's...

Olmsted's Original UPI Series

While driving to the grocery store Friday morning, I tuned into a national talk radio show. I was just about to turn the station to find some music to listen to when I heard the announcer say “…A We the People petition…over 100,000 signatures…” Instead of turning the dial, I turned the volume up. I thought to myself, No way! Are they talking about the forced vaccination petition we all signed? The one we finally got a reply on this week? Imagine that. It made it to the national news!

I was wrong. The petition featured in the news story was not about the forced vaccinations petition that I signed several months ago. It was a petition asking that justice be served for Cecil the Lion. Well over 100,000 signatures were obtained within days of the petition being posted.

Well over 100,000.

Within days.

No glitches.

No joke.

While I am all for protecting life, including the lives of animals in the wild, after hearing the news story, I was baffled. More American citizens quickly jumped at the chance to support the legacy of a lion than stood up and signed a petition against forced vaccinations.

“We petition the Obama Administration to:

PROHIBIT ANY LAWS MANDATING THE FORCE AND REQUIREMENT OF VACCINATIONS OF ANY KIND.

All the authors and I met and decided sometime between August and September ’02 not to report any race effects for the paper. Sometime soon after the meeting, we decided to exclude reporting any race effects, the co-authors scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the study. The remaining four co-authors all met and brought a big GARBAGE can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can. -- William Thompson, CDC Senior Scientist

Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD, an online supplement retailer for patients with special needs.

SACRAMENTO (CBM) - New information coming out of Washington, D.C., is confirming the worst fears of Californians who opposed the state's new "School Vaccine Bill." On the flip side, it is also arming them with the strongest argument yet against mandating vaccination for all school-aged children - with exemptions only for medical conditions - across the state.

Maybe I’ve been wrong? Maybe parents shouldn’t have a choice to say no to vaccines that are recommended by medical professionals clearly more knowledgeable than us. After all, none of them, from the drug manufacturers on down to the pediatricians have any economic interest in making sure that each and every person is given each and every possible injection, right? The politicians who have supported and voted for the denial of my right as a parent to make all medical decisions after giving informed consent, surely haven’t been bought and paid off by the lobbyist’s dollars filling their campaign coffers, right? After all, the science is settled, right?

If a parent doesn’t have a choice and is prevented from saying no to vaccines based on religious or philosophical reasons, then they will be off the hook! A parent will no longer need to feel guilt when their child is injured or dies because they didn’t get informed on the known, but intentionally minimized risks of vaccines, and then wish they could go back in time and make a different decision for the health of their child. They will no longer have to lay awake nights, unable to sleep, regretting that they blindly and ignorantly followed their doctor’s and the CDC’s recommended vaccine schedule. They would be able to sleep comfortably, knowing that the lifelong care their child needs is part of their sacrifice to the “greater good” of society. (Except that their high needs child might have issues that demand attention in the middle of the night, interrupting their guilt free, deep sleep) Their child was just a loser in the lottery of adverse effects. No choice, no control, no blame, no guilt. After all, what is good for everyone is good for the individual, right? The rights of society are more important than individual rights, aren’t they?

Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD, an online supplement retailer for patients with special needs.

In 2014 the big announcement was another stunning increase in the autism rate, now at one in every 68 children, one in every 42 boys. Officials were quick to tell us that THIS INCREASE might not show a REAL INCREASE in autism; it might only be better discernment of children with the disorder. (Actually, in past years, along with every increase announcement, officials had routinely said the same thing.)

On March 25, 2015 I received the following e-mail from Kevin O’Malley of the Commonwealth Club of California regarding a scheduled appearance on April 9, 2015 by myself, Dr. Judy Mikovits, and Dr. Brian Hooker for a presentation entitled “American Whistleblowers”.

Kent and Judy,

Unfortunately it seems that Kent's blog two days ago set up a chain reaction that is causing some challenges with the Commonwealth Club, and we have come under a lot of fire from outside the Club directed at us.

Given the timing, and the challenging environment right now, the conversation has become a much different one than our program intended, and not one that will support getting the word out about your book, or any of our positive messages. As such, I am going to have to postpone the program and revisit how to best present this all at a later date.

This is a very tricky issue in a Public Affairs Forum, and it appears the Kent's warning about drawing attention was correct. There is also concern about how we are framing the discussion, and the focus on whistle-blowers seems to have back-fired, and taken us away from our primary intent.

Please let folks know that we are postponing the program -- and PLEASE DO NOT include any editorial comments about this in anything further you make public. Just let them know that we need to postpone due to a scheduling challenge. Any further editorial input around any of this will just make things worse; we need to let any outside attention fade away from what we tried to do here.

Kevin

It’s probably worth backing up a little bit to recount how all of this came to pass. On February 18, 2015 the wonderful documentary Trace Amounts, detailing the history of mercury in vaccines, was showing at the Opera Plaza Cinemas in San Francisco. I was the master of ceremonies for the event. Prior to the showing of the movie, I met Christie Dames and her husband, Kevin O’Malley. Christie was enthusiastic about the book I had just co-written with Dr. Judy Mikovits, PLAGUE: One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth About Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases.

Dr. Mikovits is a government scientist of more than twenty years’ experience and was Director of the Lab of Antiviral Drugs Mechanisms at the National Cancer Institute. Her research indicated a possible retroviral cause to chronic fatigue syndrome and autism, making it similar in many ways to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, although without the fatal consequences. I am a public school science teacher and an attorney. Christie wanted to get us to speak at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

Her husband Kevin, is Chairman of the Business and Leadership forum at the Commonwealth Club agreed and we quickly made plans for an appearance. Christie thought we should broaden the scope from just our book, and include Dr. Brian Hooker, a biology professor from Simpson University, who had recently burst onto the public stage with revelations of a whistleblower for the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. William Thompson. The allegations of Dr. Thompson were that that public health officials had covered up a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in African-American males.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I arrive today on matters of research and scientific integrity.

To begin with, I am absolutely, resolutely pro-vaccine. Advancements in immunization have saved countless lives and have greatly benefited public health. That being said, it’s troubling to me that in a recent senate hearing on childhood vaccination, it was never mentioned that our government has paid out over three billion dollars through a vaccine injury compensation program for children who have been injured by vaccinations. Regardless of the subject matter, parents making decisions about their children’s health deserve to have the best information available to them. They should be able to count on federal agencies to tell them the truth.

Age of Autism has frequently highlighted the tragic case of Harry Horne-Roberts (pictured) who died in London in 2009 after having been incompetently medicated with an anti-psychotic drug, without the knowledge of his family. While the letter does not challenge the use psychiatric medications in every case it does acknowledge that they cause harm – particularly when prescribed on a prolonged basis - and that they have been used as a means of control, rather than because the patient had mental health problems.

The letter obviously stands as warning about the medical abuse of the learning disabled across the globe.

Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD, an online supplement retailer for patients with special needs.

Phoenix physician Jack Wolfson was in the subject of a lot of criticism a few months ago when his stand on vaccination was made public.

A number of big news outlets went after him: NY Time, Washington Post, CNN, ...

July 28, 2015. Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of Mason's death. We lost three children with autism to wandering and subsequent drowning last weekend. Where is the public outcry? The media breaking news? The AAP missives warning parents about how to save their kids' lives? Many of us at AofA and the majority of our readers have children, some are adults, for whom wandering, bolting, eloping, call it what you will, is a life threatening cloud that never dissipates. Our hearts and prayers go out to every family who has faced this tragedy.

Managing Editor's Note: We honored Sheila Medlam earlier this week (HERE) for her unfathomable strength following her young son Mason's death by wandering and drowning this past summer. She created a Foundation in his name to protect others. That's the meaning of strength, love and mettle. It moves our community forward and teems with positive energy. It shines in stark contrast to the negative factions who fight and write for base and self-serving reasons. Sheila sent this thank you, and we decided to highlight and share it with each of you, our fellow travelers on this journey. Happy New Year, friends. KIM

Sheila said:

Thank you so much for recognizing our voices and our passion. It is wonderful to know that Mason lives on through such wonderful people who not only love my son, mourn his loss, but understand how quickly our lives were changed. Over the past few months there have been a few, very few thankfully, that have said, "How could this happen? This family is responsible. This family is negligent." Those few can never understand the pain and sorrow that we live with every second of every day, but all of you do. You have never asked those questions because you see your children in my son's beautiful face and you understand how our world was destroyed in the blink of an eye. It is very easy to share Mason with all of you. I can not bear to let him go. I can not bear to let the world forget him or let his memories fade. He lives on in all of you and I am forever in your debt. Thank you for allowing us to become a part of all of your families. Thank you for remembering Mason and keeping him alive in all of your hearts. You will never know what you have all done for my family. You saved us. You gave us the strength to live when we didn't know how we would be able to. Thank you all so much. It doesn't seem like those words are even adequate for all you have given, but they are all I can offer. We love you all so much. Sheila Medlam and family

Sometimes we get comments from people who may or may not be on the spectrum themselves trying to put miles between the drowning and the autism: "NT kids drown too." We try to take those comments from whence they come.

But.... sometimes someone who is in a position of authority says something God awful stupid and callous to us and well, we just have to share it with you readers. Meet Dr. Sonia Khan.

Dr. Sonia Khan, "@Sapienist"

Dr. Sonia Khan is a pediatrician in California - ah yes, home of SB277 - and her Twitter handle is @Sapienist. I know I'm just a dumb autism Mommy and writer and such, but having taken Latin for several years, and paid attention in science class (clean up on the troll aisle, yes, I was an A student in science) I know that sapienist is a play on the Latin word for wise or knowledgeable. Our species is homo sapiens sapiens, although we might need to reconsider that classification if a "doctor" can be so un-sapiens. (That 8th grade science report on Linnaeus is really paying off! Thank you, Mr. Raila!)

Her response to our post about three dead children who had autism?

"YR we responsible 4 ppl not watching their kids?"

If this doc has a bedside manner, it's next to a bed of nails. Even her Twitter profile photograph says, "I look down on you from a position of power."

She missed the point of my post entirely, which was that the public health and pharmatrician community claims to be all about the health, safety and well being of "the herd" when it comes to vaccination mandates, but in reality, it appears that some don't give a fig about actual children. Dr. Khan illustrates our point perfectly.

Well played, Dr. Khan. But hardly wise.

Kim

9:30pm EDT - Seems Dr. Khan had a light caseload today as she continued to respond to Age of Autism. She tweets: "...how those kids got loose." Wow. Are they zoo animals?

This pediatrician seems to know exactly nothing about autism and wandering. Again she has missed that this is NOT about vaccination - it's about the facade of care to push an agenda. About how quickly a child can dart off, even bolt from an autism school (Avonte Oquendo's death was a national news story). About how even the most vigilant family member can not have eyes on arms length 24/7/365 realistically. I know parents who sleep with hotel locks on their doors. A bed in front of the front door. Alarms on windows and doors. Fences. Gates. Bolts. And still, their children have managed to elope. There is a CDC ICD-9 wandering code for autism.

Part 1 of a two-part series: Dr. Mumper provides an evidence-based overview of medical problems often found in children with autism, so that parents and clinicians can collaborate on assessments and treatment strategies.

Dr. Mumper received her M.D. from the Medical College of Virginia and is board-certified in pediatrics. Prior to joining ARI as Medical Director for five years, she held a clinical faculty appointment at the University of Virginia for sixteen years. In 2000, Dr. Mumper founded Advocates for Children, her general pediatrics practice. Advocates for Families is designed to care for children with autism. In 2007 Dr. Mumper founded The Rimland Center in Virginia, to mentor clinicians and conduct clinical research.

The treatment category is sponsored by Lee Silsby, the leader in quality compounded medications for autism.

The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. – John Stuart Mill, 1859

Majorities are never a proof of the truth. – Dr. Walter R. Hadwen, 1896

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933

Fear. It’s a natural and primal human emotion. While human instinct is exceptional in evaluating and reacting to a natural personal risk, as in facing a predator, humans are terrible at assessing modern risks. According to Psychology Today [1] this is because our ancestors were programmed to quickly react and respond to a situation before it is even consciously perceived. Our reactions aren’t based in logic and statistics, but in lightning fast primitive responses. Threats such as venomous spiders and snakes [2] cause an out of proportion fear compared with the more likely threat of being killed in a car crash [3]. The low risk of a being killed in a shark attack [4] evokes more terror than the much greater chance of dying from a prescription drug [5]. (Spider and snake bites kill approximately 13 people a year and shark attacks kill 1 person every 2 years in the United States; there were 32,719 deaths in motor vehicle crashes in 2013 and 38,329 people died from a drug overdose in 2010 the United States.)

Where is Dr. Richard Pan?Where is Dr. Paul Offit?Where is Dr. Tom Insel?Where is Nancy Snyderman?Where is Emily Willingham?Where is Liz SzaboWhere is Anderson Cooper?Where is Jimmy Kimmel?Where is Penn? Teller?Where is Amy Schumer?Where is Ari Ne'eman?Where is John Robison?

100+ cases of measles, zero deaths, dozens of laws in play mandating vaccines "to protect children." Three beautiful boys with autism die inside of a week? Connect the pox dots. Pharma wants to sell vaccines. Neurodiversity wants to sell autism as a good thing we need. Hand meets glove. Surgical glove. And we and our kids get a rectal exam....

FLORIDA

PINELLAS PARK, FL — A boy who drowned in a family pool Monday evening was autistic and suffered from seizures, according to police.

I was talking with Ken Stoller, a San Francisco physician and expert in hyperbaric oxygen treatment, about how Congress needs to move on the whistleblower story and how the media is already trying to discredit it,

The stories that immediately come to mind are two recent ones from Forbes by Emily Willingham.

Without ever talking to Dr. William Thompson, the CDC whistleblower, or Dr. Thomas Frieden, the head of the CDC, or Dr. Julie Gerberding, the former head of the CDC who was in charge of the agency when Thompson was ordered to cover up a link between the MMR vaccine and the onset of autism in African American males in their study, Willingham slammed Kennedy for not knowing the science.

As we were discussing this, Dr. Stoller made the offhanded comment, 'Black Lives Matter,' quoting Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. At that moment, all I could think was, YES, THEY DO, and not just adults who have encounters with the police. That statement should be our mantra!

Mom’s helping Ronan this evening. He’s had a few seizures. So, while she’s staying close by his side, I thought I’d help her get a Sunday post ready.

I saw Trace Amounts when Eric Gladen was in Washington, D.C. Half-way through the movie, I leaned over to my Mom and said, “I’ve got to hug him when this is done.”

Mom asked me, “Why?”

I told her, “Because he’s been through so much.”

I got to tell Eric that when the movie was over. I told him I learned much more about mercury from his documentary. I already knew a little bit because of my brother’s vaccine injury and because we learned about mercury in school.

Filmmaker Eric Gladen with Ronan’s big sister, Fiona.

In school, the textbooks said that mercury was beneficial. I don’t believe that it is. Mercury can affect the brain and someone’s health. Eric explains that. He also talks about the government, the pharmaceutical companies, and how the American people need to be more aware of how mercury is allowed to be used even though it can cause problems.

Pfood and Pharma have "most favored industry" status in America at this time. Used to be the oil industry, the war machine and its tech/aviation/ship building companies. Used to be the auto industry. Tobacco. No more. Pfood and pharma are now intricately intertwined in your health and your healthcare. Politicians from coast to coast on both sides of the aisle aren't just chipping away at your right know and your right to say no, they are blasting it with dynamite.

The "Dark Act" prevents states from allowing labeling of GMO food. And it passed the House of Representatives this week on the heels of California's draconian vaccine rights limitation bill SB277. Unfortunately, many of those who want knowledge and prevention of forced consumption of GMO products refuse to consider that the same forces are in effect when it comes to vaccination rights.

We should know what's in our food, how our food is grown, harvested, kept free of pests, fed, caged, slaughtered. We should know what's in our vaccines. The risks. And we should have the right to know and to say "no."

We're happy to share a new book from our friends at Skyhorse Publishing called "Victory over Autism" by Mary Romaniec. Perhaps you heard Mary speak at Autism One last month? We have a copy of her book for one lucky reader. Leave a comment to enter. Buy the book here.

Good luck!

Children are recovering from autism, as are their families.

Children are recovering from autism, and yet the general public is largely unaware that this is even possible, let alone happening at astounding rates. While traditional medicine continues to be stymied on the causes and potential remedies, other physicians and proactive parents have partnered to become a progressive force for change.

In Victory over Autism, Mary Romaniec takes the reader through the personal stages parents will experience when their child is first diagnosed with autism, and shows how to become part of the next generation of proactive parents who are making a difference in the well-being of their children and families. Romaniec explores the stages of grief associated with the diagnosis, followed by an examination of the winning attributes parents should—and will—possess or adopt as they strive toward the goal of better health and full recovery for their child.

Victory over Autism includes personal accounts of overcoming the autism odds, looking out for all family members, and addressing marriage issues, and explores ways of getting the parent into the mind-set that a victory over autism is a realizable goal.

Barbara Loe Fisher: "The bill allows the FDA to lowering licensing standards for testing of experimental drugs. . . and 'biological products,' a category that includes vaccines. So companies will no longer be required to conduct large, case controlled clinical trials to evaluate safety and effectiveness.

Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 344-77 to approve H.R. 6, better known as the 21st Century Cures Act. I received a promotional email solicitation from Autism Speaks a few weeks ago to ask me to contact my representative and ask them to vote in favor of this legislation.

That is when my curiosity bugged me to actually investigate the 21st Century Cures Act. And boy did the red flags pop up after reading the table of contents of the proposed bill.

The bill seeks to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), nearly 9 billion, and asks the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to accelerate the rate of medical innovations. Who can say no to this? Maybe a few very stout fiscal hawks that voted against any new federal spending. And there were a few that actually did.

In a July 10th press release, Autism Speaks stated the following “We applaud the bipartisan efforts of Chairman Fred Upton and ranking member Congressman Diana DeGette for their leadership on H.R. 6, or the 21st Century Cares Act, to accelerate the discovery, development and delivery of the new treatments for all, including many families with autism,” said Liz Feld, president of Autism Speaks. “Our advocates will continue the work of educating Senators on the importance of this legislation to our community and we are hopeful that H.R. 6 will move quickly through the Senate to bring us closer to new breakthroughs in medicine.”[i]

This bill really sounds very promising for all of us, those families dealing with autism, those individuals having to live with life altering disabilities, and those who live in pain daily dealing with chronic disease, those patients in need of a life-saving medical device. So I ask you, who would vote against this? The bill passed out of the House Energy Committee 51-0 and the complete House voted 344-77.

But as the old saying goes, the devil is in the details. So let’s look behind the curtain, place a spotlight on the language of this fast moving bill and see where the cockroaches scatter.

We know that the pharmaceutical industry and medical device companies are responsible for drafting the language and promoting it to Congress.[ii]

I contacted several congressional offices seeking comment on the vote. Most declined but a couple of unnamed staffers stated that the large increase in new federal spending without the promise of results led to decision to vote against the bill. One staff member mentioned that the Congressman was not happy with the track record of NIH and credible research. We have we heard that before?

One has to wonder about the speed of this bill being introduced in May of this year, receiving a fast committee vote and over whelming support for the full House. I want to ask you to focus your attention to page 162-168 of this entire 360+ page bill. Just seven pages. It is like the infamous 16 words stuck in the middle of a 5,400 word document spoken by President Bush in the 2003 State of the Union speech. Those 16 words dealt with the yellowcake uranium claim that Iraq was seeking to acquire from a nation in Africa. And we all know where that claim led us.

People who get vaccines for their children and themselves in accordance with the CDC's recommendations and their state's requirements for school sincerely believe they are doing what is best. They may feel a little uneasy about vaccines but they trust the government and the CDC and the vaccine companies and the information they get from mainstream media and their pediatrician. They haven't personally experienced a vaccine injury. They haven't had a child die of sudden infant death syndrome or had a child grievously injured by vaccines. Conversely, people who have experience a tragedy caused by vaccines are profoundly changed. The trust mentioned above is shattered. They see life differently. They don't believe everything they are told about the safety of vaccines. They start to read books which question vaccine safety and do other research that they would never have considered before. They have awakened to a new reality that things are not always as they seem. And they develop a strong desire to warn others of the dangers of vaccines. Most of us suspect that we are being skillfully deceived in various ways. Vaccine safety is one of those ways. The rest of this article is a warning.

People who haven't personally experienced a vaccine related tragedy may find it difficult to believe that vaccine policy in the United Stated has been captured and corrupted by the powerful pharmaceutical companies that produce vaccines. These giant corporations have one main focus: profits. Think of them as evil or the dark side and you will be close to reality. This is causing countless ruined lives. Because of the single minded focus on profits there are too many vaccines which contain very toxic ingredients and many vaccines are given too early. Excessive vaccine policies are fueled by greed and built on a foundation of lies. We now have more vaccines than any other country and we have the highest infant mortality rate of all developed countries. This is an indisputable fact. By any measure our children who do survive infancy are the sickest generation in modern times. Congressional subcommittees have found the CDC to be hopelessly corrupt and riddled with conflicts of interest. The vaccine policies they establish and promote are entirely for the financial benefit of vaccine companies. The well-being of children is given lip service but is not a priority.

The public relations machine that keeps these vaccine policies rolling and expanding has deep pockets and is very effective. One aspect of this is near complete control of how these issues are presented in mainstream media. They have been able to get many people to believe obvious lies for decades. Here are a few of these lies with my comments in parenthesis: (1) Vaccines don't cause sudden infant death syndrome. (Consider this: The SIDS rate dropped like a rock in Japan when they postponed all vaccines until age two.) (2) Vaccines don't cause autism. (This is the biggest and most crucial lie for the vaccine industry. Imagine what will happen to vaccine profits when the public starts to realize that vaccines do cause autism. The drastic increase of autism exactly parallels the increase in vaccines starting in the late 1980s. Scores of independent scientific studies implicate vaccines as the main cause of autism.) (3) The mercury preservative thimerosal in vaccines is not a problem. (Literally hundreds of ignored scientific studies show that thimerosal is a powerful neurotoxin which causes brain damage and serious neurological problems including seizures, learning disabilities, and autism). (4) Serious vaccine injuries are rare. (One in 50 children born in the U.S. these days will be diagnosed with autism. Vaccines can also cause asthma, life-threatening allergies, autoimmune disorders, type I diabetes, hyperactivity, chronic ear aches, and more. Would you characterize all this as rare?). (5) Hundreds of deaths and serious injuries in teen girls following HPV vaccines are all a coincidence. (This is very convenient for the vaccine industry but is ridiculously unlikely). (5) Autism is a genetic condition and there is no such thing as regressive autism. (Tens of thousands of parents have described their child's regression into autism following a round of vaccines.)

Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD, an online supplement retailer for patients with special needs.

Whenever the issues of vaccine safety and the link to neurological damage in children becomes really heated like it is today with the push to end exemptions and the circulation of reports of a whistleblower within the vaccine division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there's suddenly the appearance of a study to downplay the autism epidemic. Either there'll be the discovery of something that could be associated with the development of autism OR findings that seem to disprove any epidemic increase in the number of affected children. As expected, new research has just been announced that once again seems to disprove the idea that autism is on the rise.

Managing Editor's Note: Yesterday, we ran Anne Dachel's take on the Washington Post article on the joy of autism and the mirage of neurodiversity, AofA reader Aimee Doyle wrote a pointed letter to the reporter and shared her letter in our comments. We thought it was an important point of view. If you would like to share your thoughts with Ms. Somashekar, you can reach her here.

###

Here's a copy of the email I sent to Ms. Somashekhar this morning. I'll post again if she gets back to me (unlikely). But I just couldn't let the article stand unchallenged.

__________________________ Dear Ms. Somashekhar: I have some comments on yesterday's article "In Autism, A sense of Comfort and Identity, Not Dread." I am the mother of a 25 year old man with profound autism, who will need lifelong care, so I speak with substantial experience of autism. I was disappointed in your article's narrow focus on the neurodiversity movement. Most individuals on the spectrum are not high functioning. Approximately a third of those on the spectrum are non-verbal; another third or so (my son falls into this category) are semi-verbal (some language, but not really able to write or hold a conversation). The remaining third have high functioning autism (some of whom can finish high school and hold a job with supports).

The percentage of individuals on the spectrum who have Asperger's syndrome and who can go to college, get a job, get married, have friends - participate in the neurodiversity movement! - is vanishingly small. Yet this is the population that you describe, and you imply that this "movement" includes all individuals with autism. Why does the media never cover the challenging aspects - both personal and societal - of moderate and severe autism?

I realize you interviewed and quoted Kim Stagliano, which was sort of a nod to balance, but was lost in the overall thrust of the article. However, you didn't discuss the tragedy of wandering - over 50% of individuals with autism wander, which has resulted in death by drowning or other causes.

Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD, an online supplement retailer for patients with special needs.

July 21, 2015, WAND-TV Decatur, IL: Childhood vaccines. Could there be a link? Why one local doc says "yes, but no"

July 21, 2015, Forbes: Why Does Robert F Kennedy Jr Get Brain Science So Wrong? by Emily Willingham

July 20, 2015, NewsMax: Vaccines: Which Ones You Need, Which Ones You Don't, by Sylvia Booth Hubbard

Managing Editor's Note: I was interviewed for this article and spent a good amount of time with the reporter on the phone. "I’m a reporter from the Washington Post. I read your fascinating and heartbreaking piece about your daughters on our Web site and hoped to talk with you for an article about the “neurodiversity” movement. Do you have a moment to speak today?"

I was clear that acceptance is the BASELINE for any diagnosis, including autism. I was clear that I love and cherish my daughters. I celebrate their every achievement. And yet? She chose to attempt to diminish me. The fact that I bathe my girls and change their period pads was in a sentence I used to describe the severity of their autism, NOT as any form of complaint. That's lost in this piece. What else is new? She even found a way to weave in the pharmedia company line about vaccination. With a shoehorn. Autism is a serious diagnosis that brings challenges at EVERY inch of the spectrum. Yes we want acceptance and love for our children. Yes we want jobs. Yes we want those who can to find love, a sex life, marriage and children. Anne Dachel tackled the article in her usual fashion - and I thank her for her kind words. Kim

By Anne Dachel

The media has so far been able to convince us that having two percent of our children with an autism diagnosis is normal and acceptable. That's probably because it's the parents and the schools that have shouldered that burden. What's coming next is a social/economic cost that will be evident to all: ADULTS WITH AUTISM.

Understand that RIGHT NOW, no one can show us an adult population with autism even remotely comparable to what we see in our children--especially severely affected adults whose symptoms would be easily recognized. This should be cause for alarm, but surprisingly, it isn't. No one ever asks what we're doing for all the autistic adults out there right now. And while the current adults must be in some sort of limbo, we really need to think about the aging out of all these children with ASD.

What I like to call "the really big lie about autism" (autism has always been around--we just called it something else) is going to get a whole lot bigger.

Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD, an online supplement retailer for patients with special needs.

(Notice that in the two months since the story first broke, it's gone from PBS saying the lung cancer vaccine can't prevent lung cancer to Fox News now saying it can.)

On a recent story, Bob Moffitt posted a comment about a Fox News story on the development of a lung cancer vaccine. (Thank you, Bob.)

I felt I had to look into this. What I found was truly scary.

Yes, there is work being worked on a "lung cancer vaccine" in Cuba, only it's not exactly a vaccine to prevent lung cancer.

This is a story about someone who's focused on health and healing. We hope parents will benefit from the message.

Megan Van Zyl is the owner and operator of The Green Umbrella in Roseville and Edina, MN. The Green Umbrella is a holistic nutritional therapy company with the aim of bringing optimal health to clients in America and to fund orphanage work and holistic clinics abroad.

Megan's specialty is in nutrition for cancer and neurological conditions. Her passion is to help support cancer patients and families with children diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Her other passion is to take care of orphans and build holistic clinics in other countries.

I asked Megan about her work.

What is your background? How did you become interested in nutritional health?

My background is in counseling and pastoral ministry. I have my MA in Human Development Counseling from Vanderbilt University. I actually became interested in nutritional therapy when I was working for a family who had a child diagnosed with autism. I was young, 20 years old, and learned a lot about the holistic treatments that this child was receiving through his mother's guidance. Prior to this experience, I was unaware of how toxins affected our health and especially the health of those diagnosed with autism. I was working with this child on ABA therapy, but left with a passion and a desire to help in a holistic way with children diagnosed with autism.

Why do you think the medical community is not proactive about diet and eliminating toxins?

This is a complicated question and thus, does not have a simple answer. The average doctor takes 2 classes about nutrition and the information that is presented is outdated and not cutting edge. Also, doctors have immense fear surrounding medical malpractice lawsuits in this country. If they make a recommendation that is not the "norm" or cannot be confirmed by other doctors, they may be convicted with malpractice if they are sued. This keeps them operating under the standard care of practice and stifles them from being innovative, proactive, and creative in their approaches with their clients. I would not want to be in their position, personally. The tools that are readily available for doctors are pharmaceutical drugs, which also add a toxic burden to the body and bring potential side effects. They honestly don't have a lot of options, unless they pursue becoming an ND or pursue practicing medicine out of the country. Some doctors have chosen, for example, to move to Mexico to treat cancer patients where they have more freedom to use diet, supplementation, herbal remedies, and Gerson protocols.

Parents of disabled children, desperate to blame someone for their bad genetics or inexplicable acts of God, have taken to social media in recent years as a “vocal minority” to blame their woes on life-saving measures whose side effects we all know are exceedingly rare: vaccines.

As much as our hearts break for these parents raising non-verbal autistic children in diapers at age 10, or whose kids go into anaphylactic shock six times a year from exposure to common everyday foods, or those with imperfect offspring who suffer from epilepsy and spend a quarter of the year hospitalized, we have to chalk these conditions up to the new epidemic of “Coincidence Disorder” because if there’s one thing we know about these mysteries: they are not caused by vaccines.

There is no limit to the coincidences that these pathetic parents blame on the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Take, for instance, when a seemingly-healthy baby is vaccinated for Hepatitis B before being discharged from the hospital, and suddenly that baby is incapable of suckling at the breast. Never mind that mama had been breastfeeding for 48 hours already, this baby now has to be bottle fed because it has forgotten its eating reflex. Babies are silly and sometimes these things just happen, right? Did you see this study of little monkeys who weren’t able to suckle after a hep b vax? Are we monkeys? No, we are not. We are plagued with Coincidence Disorder, and it’s tragic.

What about the 896 infant deaths after the Hib vaccine reported to VAERS between 1990 and 2013? Sometimes babies just die within 24 to 48 hours of the two or four-month routine immunizations. Do you know why medical examiners never say that a child who died of SIDS in fact died from vaccines? Because it’s not a box to check off on the form, that’s why. Get used to those two and four month spikes in Coincidence Disorder. Read the full post here.

Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD, an online supplement retailer for patients with special needs.

Thanks to WND.com, Robert Kennedy, Jr. finally has a chance to have his voice heard. The mainstream U.S. media, while pretending to legitimately cover the controversy over vaccine safety, merely gives us the pro-pharma side. Almost without exception, the press has spent the last decade and a half telling us that only one study has ever linked vaccines to autism and that research and the researcher have been fully discredited. All subsequent science has shown no link.

Reporters censor any information from the growing list of hundreds of experts whose work raises serious concerns about side effects from our aggressive vaccination schedule. And they really don't want to hear anything Robert Kennedy has to say on the subject. He has way too much science on his side.

No other medical product has ever been so universally promoted and defended as safe and effective by doctors, health officials and news sources. In the face of increasing concern on the part of parents, these groups have only dug in their heels and become more adamant in their claims. With Robert Kennedy, Jr, a well known environmentalist with a lot of credibility, now the leading figure in the vaccine choice movement, this debate is all over the public arena.

The vaccine defenders (doctors in white coats connected to prestigious institutions) are constantly in the news assuring us that the schedule is safe beyond question because all the science is in, in addition to reminding us that vaccination is an obligation for all parents. It's easy to understand why the following article by Robert Kennedy wasn't published by the New York Times or any other big name news source. It challenges everything they've sworn is truth for years. Only WND.com had the courage and the ethics to put this out.

As we make plans for a family getaway this summer, I realized that I never shared what we did on our family vacation from last year. After months of planning, we took the kids with a two-week vacation to the Pacific Northwest.

Since I love surprises, we didn’t tell the kids where we were going until we were on the plane. They guessed and guessed and guessed all sorts of fun places we might go. Little Buddy guessed correctly that we were going to Washington state. It wasn’t an easy trip to plan, but it was one of the neatest ones we have been able to go on as a family. From one coast to the other, with all seven of us traveling, our trip was quite the adventure.

TGIF: Toes Go In First…even if the water was only 55 degrees!

Plan, Plan, and Then Plan Some More

On any given day when Ronan and I leave the house, I plan ahead. I think about how long we’ll be out of the house and pack what I think we may need. That includes diapers, wipes, snacks, and a change of clothes, seizure meds, and emergency seizure meds. It isn’t much to carry around, but those essentials must come with us.

I knew that we’d need to bring a lot more than those few items on a cross-country trip. Planning for the trip and for the length of time we’d be gone took months. I had to think about so many things.

The travel aspect – Ronan hasn’t been on an airplane since 2007. A million questions went through my mind as I thought about our trip. Would he board the flight willingly? Would he stay calm on the flight? Would the flight crew understand autism? What if we run into delays – what can we do/bring to help Ronan handle that? What if we had a medical emergency en route? How would we manage that? Not being able to do a practice run at an airport in our area, I knew that we’d be winging it and that we’d have to plan for every possible scenario and hope for the best.

Transporting the comforts of home – Besides clothes and diapering items, we had to make sure we had enough of Ronan’s medications to last the two weeks. I also made sure that we had enough for a few extra days in case we had any delays on our trip home.

Other comforts of home that I needed to have on hand were Ronan’s safe foods. I mailed a package of some of those items to the family we were staying with about two weeks before we traveled. That lightened some of the load we’d be carrying in our suitcases and gave us a day’s worth of non-perishable must haves once we arrived. Since most of us in the family are gluten-free, I had quite the stash of gf goodies for the plane trip west!

(Editor's note: This detailed comment from Cia Parker about an earlier story, like so many of the 119,000 (!) comments we have published over the past seven years, deserves wide attention. Here it is, with some elaboration provided by Cia. Thanks, Cia, and all who take the time to comment and add so much to the richness of AOA's content)

I think a good way forward would be for both physicians and parents to read the same books, and then discuss them at a sort of book club meeting. Some states have already passed into law a requirement that patients attend an educational presentation by a doctor about the value and safety of vaccines. It would seem reasonable to require that physicians attend such meetings to discuss a book on vaccines which everyone had read, and would be more respectful than a lecture which privileges the physician's understanding of vaccines over that of those concerned about the rising tide of the vaccine-injured.

A discussion of one book which everyone had read would also keep it objective, so as not to get into "I've always been told that ... is a deadly disease, and the one in a million severely damaged by the vaccine is worth it," on one side, and "My child was healthy and normal until he got the ..., and then all hell broke loose and now he's ...., it would have been better to let him get ..., and what's more, ten children on my block reacted severely to the same vaccine," on the other. Talk about never the twain shall meet.

There are dozens of excellent books which could be discussed, most of them exhaustively referenced, with extensive lists of works and studies cited, so that doctors wishing to refute them would have to attempt to do so while respecting the rules of professional debate.

It would be great to discuss Judy Converse's When Your Doctor is Wrong: the Hep B Vaccine and Autism? Get the doctors' opinion on Judy's doctors blowing her off when her son reacted to the hep-B vaccine just the way mine did, with prolonged inconsolable screaming (he had severe bowel symptoms as well, which my daughter did not). Get everyone's opinion on the extremely high number of children irreparably damaged by the vaccine, many times higher than the number of children diagnosed with hep-b in the US.

My son is Sectioned again, as a direct result of being forced to take Risperidal .

You will remember that we absconded to Spain while Andrew was under a Community Treatment order. While in Spain, still on Risperidal, Andrew got ill again. It is characterised by really odd behaviour, moving things and very smelly urine. The doc in Spain had this analysed and Andrew had acidosis. We already knew this perhaps ten years ago after Ken Aitken suggested we test it. GP then would do nothing and, even when he has the classic Kaussmaul's breathing, he is refused care now.

In January 2014 we had Andrew at the Breakspear Hospital to see Prof Puri. The minute he saw the gasping, he had him on an ECG. The trace is suggestive of a pulmonary blockage. They were going to do bicarbonate IV, but had none in stock.

The letter to the GP from the Prof, states that Andrew would need this intervention in an emergency and gave a Diagnosis of mitochondrial dysfunction, acidosis, detoxification deficit as described by Dr Lathe and Prof St Clair and underlying infection, possibly bacterial.

This has been completely ignored in contravention of our Patient's charter and even after the instructions, he was again refused emergency treatment for the acidosis. He does not have diabetes, so this must be metabolic.

Note: Fiona Sinclair of the group Autism Rights highlights the anomalous situation of including autism under the general heading of mental illness in the light of a new Mental Health Bill before the Scottish Parliament and lists proposed amendments.

By Fiona Sinclair

The Mental Health Act is currently undergoing revision, through the Mental Health Bill, and we are backing several amendments, that would improve matters for people with ASD - and others - in the mental health system. These include an amendment by Jackie Baillie MSP asking for a Review of the Mental Health Act within a specific timescale, to consider removing people with Learning Disabilities `however manifested` from the provisions of the Act. Jackie's Amendment is supported by the Learning Disability Cross Party Group, to which I gave a talk on this very subject and raised this as an issue back in 2012;

I worked with my constituency MSP, Adam Ingram, to submit Amendments at Stage 2 of the Bill and these have now been taken up and re-worded by Richard Simpson MSP at Stage 3. I have copied and pasted the text of the relevant amendments below.

Autism in Scottish schools rose from 820 cases in 1998 to 9,946 in 2013.We have to consider what it means in a civilised nation when you have to look after an autism rate of 1 in 30…Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, needs to stop being re-assured by the UK Department of Health in Westminster that they know what they are doing and everything is completely control. They don’t and it isn’t.

While the UK Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne contemplate how to trim billions from government spending they might like to bear in mind the projected cost to the British economy of autism, calculated a London School of Economics academic at an £34 billion ($54b) in 2013 and modestly downsized to £32b ($51b): this was up about 20 times from the greater than £1b figure calculated in 2001. But if as we shall see the basis of Prof Knapp’s calculations maybe erroneous we are hurtling to a situation where the costs will be even worse. The problem is dramatically highlighted by the numbers of Autism Spectrum Disorder cases recorded in Scottish schools from 1998 to 2013 (it is worth concentrating on Scotland because the figures go back further and are more comprehensive than for England): in Scotland the figures rose from 820 cases in 1998 to 9,946 in 2013: allowing for the change in overall numbers this was 1 in 925 in 1998 and 1 in 68 in 2013. However, this in itself disguises the fact that the 2013 figure combines a lower rate in older students with a much higher rate in younger students: the present rate for children entering the system in the last five years will much higher than 1 in 68, and is perhaps conservatively in the region of 1 in 30 (data supplied by the Scottish Executive).

Year

Total number of pupils

Number of pupils with an ASD

1998

758,414

820

1999

755,081

959

2000

751,243

1,245

2001

745,063

1,515

2002

738,597

2,204

2003

732,122

2,663

2004

723,554

3,090

2005

713,240

3,484

2006

702,737

2,443

2007

692,215

3,919

2008

681,573

4,900

2009

676,740

5,254

2010

673,133

6,506

2011

670,511

7,801

2012

671,218

8,650

2013

673,530

9,946

The Bruescher study in JAMA , co-authored by Prof Knapp last year, projected 604,824 ASD cases in the total UK population - of which 491,243 were said to be adults - while the Department of Works and Pensions only knew of approximately 130,000 cases (which includes children): they conjecture that a further 300,000 cases of learning difficulty may include ASD cases but presumably this is the ever elusive hidden hoard. The National Statistics survey which projected a 1% figure for adults in England - having used inappropriate means - had in reality failed to detect a single authentic case, and was further involved in fraudulent re-labelling . However, if the Bruescher study greatly over-estimated the present number of adult cases in the UK it seems to have grossly under-calculated its per capita costs. The study gives the lifetime cost of a person with autism and intellectual disability (ID) as £1.5m ($2.2). Not only is this absurdly low (even in 2001 Prof Knapp projected an average lifetime cost -with or without ID - at £2.4m ($3.8)) a calculation based on its costs in Table 2 gives a figure for autism and ID of £4,864,911 (about $7.8m), or more than three times greater.

Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD, an online supplement retailer for patients with special needs.

As always, this was an excellent appearance by Barbara Loe Fisher on Fox News and chilling words in her commentary. Incrementally we're being conditioned to accept medical tyranny in this country. Flu shots for work and vaccine requirements for school attendance will be followed with additional mandates.

The doctor speaking in opposition to Barbara on Fox seemed oblivious to parents' real concerns. While claiming vaccines prevent disease, she said nothing about vulnerable children who will be harmed by a one-size-fits-every-child vaccine schedule. And why shouldn't she be promoting vaccination? She has absolutely no liability if a child is harmed. It's the best incentive in the world. Unfortunately there is no informed consent when it comes to vaccines and parents don't know everyone gets off scott free if their child is harmed. Side effects are a real possibility, but you'd never know it from the way they're promoted.

Vaccines in America have evolved well beyond science into religious dogma. Like religious dogma, vaccine dogma is based on fear--fear of the Hell of disease and our desire to be saved from it. The “science” supporting this religious dogma cannot be questioned any more than the Holy Word can be questioned at an evangelical tent revival.

This dogmatism is easy to see in any argument on social media between a vaccine skeptic and a vaccine supporter who harbors no doubts about the safety and efficacy of the 19th Century medical procedure known as vaccines. Arguing with a True Believer is exactly like arguing with a religious fanatic. The fanatic does not want or need facts, science based or otherwise.

What is needed to turn the tide? The tide is turned on a personal level when your child or a child close to you becomes a victim of vaccines.

The tide on a social level will unfortunately require more injury, more death, more stripping of medical freedom and autonomy. As injury and death increase, a tipping point will eventually be reached, the Overton Window will shift, and vaccine policy will become open for debate.

That's what happened in 19th Century England when Jenner's smallpox vaccine, made from scrapings of cow pus, caused so much injury and death that there were riots in the streets of London against forced smallpox vaccinations. A Royal Commission was established in wake of the riots and eventually recommended that the required vaccination law be overturned in 1898 with passage of a “Conscience Clause.”

Until that kind of social shift happens, all the whistle blowers in the world, including Dr. Thompson, will have no lasting or significant effect. There have been several Dr. Thompsons in the past. As recently as 2012, in an interview with Truthout’s Martha Rosenberg, former FDA drug reviewer, Ronald Cavanagh, exposed the FDA as a relentless criminal mafia protecting its client, Big Pharma, with a host of mob strategies. Earlier equivalents of William Thompson were J. Anthony Morris and Bernice Eddy. Ever heard of them either?

The stages of the Overton Window are:

Unthinkable Radical Acceptable Sensible Popular Policy

It's pretty clear where we are now on that scale as a society in our ability to debate vaccine science and safety. One of the major factors keeping us in the "Unthinkable" and "Radical" range is that vaccines are also consciously, methodically being made into a monolithic and powerful political ideology.

An ideology becomes political when it has its own:

***1. System of Law. The basis of this system for vaccines is the matrix of state laws that mandate all or parts of the CDC recommended schedule, the 1986 NVICP Act, and the 2001 SCOTUS decision. The recent efforts in states like California to eliminate exemptions for children and increase mandates for adults are attempts to extend a system of laws to support "vaccinism"--the ideology of vaccines.

Active girls more at risk According to a recent documentary by TV2, symptoms are particularly prevalent in girls active in sports. A survey from Frederiksberg Hospital showed that 75 percent of the girls showing symptoms had been active at a high level in sports, while half had been active at an elite level.... Read the full article here.

We need your help to continue bringing you the daily news from inside the autism epidemic. We're in an especially critical time, where healthcare and medical rights are under assault. Your right to choose vaccinations for your children is under threat from coast to coast.

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Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD, an online supplement retailer for patients with special needs.

For over a decade, Sharyl Attkisson has been there for us reporting the truth about what vaccines are doing to children while health officials, medical organizations, doctors and the media look the other way.

The photos you see are of my daughter, Megan. She has a diagnosis of both Autism and Autoimmunity. Megan smells things, people, and herself in an exaggerated and frequent way. She is not alone as it is a symptom of an impaired ability to smell correctly. Many of the children have played with feces, sipped Pine-Sol like lemonade, or sniffed dirty socks and armpits without blinking an eye. It is not news to me as I have seen it for years.

“…Here, we set out to test the hypothesis that the sniff response will be altered in children with ASD. Notably, we do not hypothesize that children with ASD will be unable to sniff, but rather that they will generate an inappropriate sniff given a particular odor…These results imply an altered olfactory response that is evident in children with ASD and is more pronounced with increased autism severity….. “

Furthermore from the study – “the sniff-response measure is reflective of the mechanism involved with the social impairment that is at the heart of ASD.”

I disagree and challenge that idea. I believe that the issue of smell is NOT related to social impairment but of smell dysfunction and quite possibly a consequence of an impaired MICROBIOME.

Is it possible that because the authors went the social impairment route instead of connecting physiological dots, the conclusion will be different? I think, yes, it will. We instead should see a different picture, which will require a MEDICAL SOLUTION and not a social impairment therapy.

Managing Editor's Note: Lori Brozek has a blog called MerckNQuest. I read this post and felt we should share it with AofA'ers. Lori has taken activism to heart - she stands at Merck HQ with a sign. She gets attention. People ask questions. If you're near Whitehouse Station, New Jersey and want to stand next to Lori, or expand the number of days per week an activist is there, you can follow her lead.--To the extent that subordinates move toward freer expression and action they will expose the inequality and throw into question the basis for its existence. And they will make the inherent conflict an open conflict. They will have to bear the burden and take the risks that go with being defined as “troublemakers.” Since this role flies in the face of their conditioning, subordinates, especially women, do not come to it with ease. Jean Baker Miller, MD

I’ve been going out to Merck lately—typically around 5pm when the employees are leaving work for the day. I started at their former headquarters’ complex off Route 22 in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey. I parked at the Al Bohem’s Golf Center parking lot that’s next to the employee entrance and exit. There’s a traffic light at the intersection, and I stood on the side where the employees were exiting and held my sign.

Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD, an online supplement retailer for patients with special needs.

The New York Times may pretend to be dedicated to truth and thoroughness in their reporting, but in the end, they're a pro-industry mouthpiece more than happy to ignore anything that would discredit the claim that vaccines are safe for the children of America. The recent Times coverage on vaccine exemptions and the claims of Robert Kennedy, Jr on thimerosal make my case.

First of all, on July 4, The NY Times resorted to a personal attack on Jim Carrey and Robert Kennedy in California, Camelot and Vaccines, by Frank Bruni. With unquestioning allegiance to whatever the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, Bruni ridiculed Kennedy, Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, not for their claims about the lack of vaccine safety, but for daring to raise concerns among parents.

Kennedy wrote a response to Bruni's piece which was published by The Times on July 10.

In his letter, which was limited in size, Kennedy stuck to the science. He challenged Bruni's claim that mercury has been removed from vaccines, citing its presence still in some tetanus and meningitis vaccines, and in about a 50,000,000 doses of the flu vaccine. Kennedy warned about merely accepting whatever the CDC says about vaccines, noting that this agency is notorious for its pharma connections. He brought up the charges by a CDC insider that vaccine study results had been altered to hide a link with autism. Finally Kennedy pointed out that there are independent researchers whose work supports his claims about mercury use in vaccines and children developing autism.

A month ago Dr. Tom Insel, director of the NIH’s Interagency Autism Co-coordinating Committee appeared in public at an Autism Speaks event. What a surprise! We, the community of ASD families, have not seen Insel at an autism event since 2014.

The last IACC meeting was almost one year ago. Since that time Dr. Insel has yet to announce the date for the next IACC meeting or even the member roster for the new 2015 committee. 2015 is more than half over so you can see how high priority autism is for Dr. Insel.

Rob Ring had asked Insel to discuss NIH ASD research “progress,” on a public panel. I know, I know, you are laughing. And yes, when asked specifically what progress the NIH has made regarding autism Insel’s answer was, you guessed it, early intervention! Sure that is the same answer Dr. Insel gave in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003….you get the point. Insel really sticks to that script.

It is disappointing that AS’ Dr. Rob Ring did not use the opportunity to ask Insel why he has failed to hold ANY IACC meetings in 2015. Ring holds a seat on IACC and his job is to represent the community of ASD families. Ring should have been asking Insel tough questions, not softballs. Ring’s job is to represent our children (who, by and large have no voice), not to be Insel’s pal.

Not every story on Age of Autism deals directly about autism. Sometimes we just profile the sheer stupidity and callous disregard of people who should know better. We did this a few months ago with a State Senator who made a joke of vaccine injury. On camera. His office read our post and apologized. We ran the apology. No need to link any of it here. Water under the bridge.

Today's subject is one William Coats, attorney at Vandeberg, Johnson & Gandara law firm, and attorney for the Clover Park School District in Washington State. A family was awarded three quarters of a million dollars in a sexual assault case involving their ELEVEN year old daughter with special needs. Mr. Coats failed to see how an assault could possibly harm a girl whose IQ is below 70. As if low IQ, cognitive deficits, mental retardation, call it what you will, means no emotions or feelings or basic humanity. It does not.

The district admitted it was negligent in its supervision of the boy, but its attorneys argued at trial that the girl deserved damages of no more than $50,000.

“Given her cognitive ability, it is unlikely the girl experienced many of the psychological issues customarily associated with sexual assault, such as feeling guilty or damaged,” the district’s attorney, William Coats, wrote in his trial brief.

Breakthroughs. We ache for them. We pray for them. When we witness them, we leap for joy.

Breakthroughs come when we least expect them, but we welcome them each and every time they happen. They can lead to reaching a milestone or securing a skill that will lead to more independence. The thought of more independence floods me with feelings of peace and of hope. But as quickly as one skill is reached or as soon as one behavior has evened out, we see an old skill wane and an old behavior re-emerge. Some people have likened that to a seesaw: one skill goes up, and the consistency of another comes down.

That’s exactly what happened last week. Ronan consistently identified and said /m/ every time we (and he) pointed to a letter m. M for Mulberry Street. M in the middle of the word Pompeii, several Ms found and said in a storybook about Pocahontas. Each time he was prompted, and even when he wasn’t, you’d have thought we won the lottery with how we celebrated hearing Ronan say the M sound.

Mid-celebrating, though, our cheers were silenced. While catching up on making appropriate sounds, Ronan had been eyeing the door. I’d noticed that he’d been eyeing the door a little bit more than usual. Maybe he wanted to try out some other skills. Maybe his confidence was up. Maybe he thought he’d check out what was going on outside for a bit. And why not? The grass is always greener…

The door Ronan was eyeing leads to the garage, to the driveway, to our street, to our little spot in the neighborhood, and to the rest of the world. With each pass of the door, and now, with each attempt to open the door, Ronan must have thought this rest of the world would soon be his. Ronan’s not ready for the world though. So, after the third time catching Ronan trying to open the door by himself, I reminded Ronan’s siblings to remember to lock it each time they came back inside from playing.

Warnings worked to keep the door locked. But Ronan was working just as hard as the kids were to figure out how to get the door opened again. The day that Ronan was successful in opening the door, and when I discovered that he’d walked through it, was the day that my world shattered.

Earlier this week the New York Times' Frank Bruni attempted to castigate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his position on vaccination SAFETY. SAFETY. SAFETY! (See below.)

Honestly, can you think of a dumber idea? "Hey, today I'll attack the nation's leading environmental safety advocate who also happens to be a member of America's most famous political family. (Apologies to Bill and Hillary, Jeb and George.)" To boot, Frank Bruni is completely ignorant of actual vaccine facts probably having been educated by Merck and CDC instead of doing actual journalism based research. But, but but the press release says....... Age of Autism's Anne Dachel wrote about the Bruni column this week:

"As America celebrated Independence Day, Frank Bruni at The Times gave us an op ed piece that championed censorship and end to both open debate and the public's right to know.

It seems that Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s efforts to stop bills that would deny a parent's right to choose when it comes to vaccines and his claim that our current schedule has damaged a generation of children has not won him support at The Times.

In California, Camelot and Vaccines, Bruni went on the attack. He appeared deeply offended that Kennedy would want to share the vaccine science he'd uncovered. Using words like "alarmists," "scaremongering," "irresponsible" and "anti-vaccine agitators," Bruni tried to convince his readers that Kennedy was not to be taken seriously. In fact, he is so sure that Kennedy couldn't possibly have anything credible to say that he is "not about to hop on the phone with him again."

It's frightening to learn that someone from a leading U.S. newspaper is so close-minded that he eagerly tells his readers there's no need to be fair and balanced when covering this heated debate, and that he intends to avoid meeting a leading advocate for one side. Kennedy can't be trusted to tell the truth and Bruni compared him with Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, whom he described as "the epitome of the sloppy talk, selfishness and disingenuousness too common in our debate and society.""

Here is Kennedy's response to Frank Bruni. It's logical, factual and accurate. We can't say the same for 99% of media attention to vaccination issues. Remember, vaccination is religion meets Disney World's FantasyLand meets Fort Knox in America, not a science.

Re “California, Camelot and Vaccines” (column, July 5): Frank Bruni says mercury has been removed from most American vaccines. But there are large doses in some tetanus and meningitis vaccines, and in about a third of the more than 150 million doses of flu vaccine available this past flu season. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends annual flu shots, including for pregnant mothers and infants over 6 months.